Quote 1
Rage—Goddess,
sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.
The first lines of an ancient epic poem
typically offer a capsule summary of the subject the poem will treat,
and the first lines of The Iliad conform to this
pattern. Indeed, Homer announces his subject in the very first word
of the very first line: “Rage.” He then locates the rage within
“Peleus’ son Achilles,” delineates its consequences (“cost the Achaeans
countless losses . . .”), links it to higher forces and agendas (“the
will of Zeus”), and notes its origin (when “the two first broke and
clashed, / Agamemnon . . . and brilliant Achilles”). Interestingly,
although these lines purport to focus on a human emotion, they interpret
this emotion as unfolding in accordance with the expression of Zeus’s
will. Similarly, Homer conceives of the entire epic as the medium
through which a divine being—a Muse—speaks.
As evident in this passage, the poem emphatically does
not undertake to deal with the Trojan War as a whole. The poet does
not even mention Troy here, and he specifically asks the Muse to
begin the story at the time when Agamemnon and Achilles first “broke and
clashed”—nine years into the ten-year conflict. Nor does he mention
the fall of Troy or the Greek victory, referring only to a vague
“end” toward which Zeus’s will moves. This does not mean that the
Trojan War does not play an important role in the poem. Homer clearly
uses the war not just as a setting but as a wellspring for the value
system he celebrates, and a source of telling illustrations for
his statements on life, death, and fate. Nonetheless, the poem remains
fundamentally focused on the conflict within a single man, and this
opening passage conveys this focus to the reader.